Pre-season football practices will be here before you know it, and it's time to start taking a position-by-position look at the defending champion Texas Longhorns. Up first is of course, the quarterbacks.

Freshmen Colt McCoy, Jevan Snead and Sherrod Harris are all on campus trying to earn the starting job and subsequently step into the spotlight in one of college football's most interesting storylines. Which freshman will take over for the legendary Vince Young and crawl into the driver's seat for the defending champs? We take a look at all three candidates.

Colt McCoy - Having spent a year wearing a redshirt and running the scout team, McCoy has the edge over the others in experience, and the smart money is on the former Jim Ned standout winning the starting job.

McCoy and Snead figure to both see significant time early on and a true first-teamer may not be decided until well into the season, but McCoy is likely to take the first snap of the season.

At 6-foot-3 and 195 pounds, McCoy is a much better athlete than most people realize, and his combination of throwing and running ability should help smooth the transition to college ball. Obviously, McCoy is never going to be compared to Vince Young, but he is capable of pulling the ball down or picking up yards on designed runs to move the chains.

The knock on McCoy from some analysts coming in was that he played small school (2A) competition, but it's hard to argue with his production at the prep level.